The Wines of Southwest U.S.A. by Jessica Dupuy

Author:Jessica Dupuy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Infinite Ideas Ltd

PART 3

ARIZONA—DESERT WINE

9

HISTORY

The Arizona wine industry reportedly grew by 1,940 percent between the years of 2003 and 2017, a number which seems incredibly implausible at first glance. But a more in-depth look into the evolution of Arizona wine in the past ten years alone reveals a surge in education, vineyard plantings, quality production, and investment in the future. While Arizona wine may remain in the vinous shadows today, the shroud is beginning to lift. With a committed focus on quality and philosophy of collaboration among the industry’s most progressive producers, the potential seen in Arizona wine means there is a strong possibility that it will soon emerge as the shining star of the Southwest.

EARLY ARIZONA WINE

As in the rest of the Southwest, early Arizona wine is tied to the Spanish missions of the sixteenth century. However, whereas evidence of seventeenth-century vineyard plantings in New Mexico, Texas, and California is fairly concrete, little has been found regarding any plantings in Arizona.

Early Arizona vineyards have been documented as far back as 1703 when a Jesuit missionary, Eusebio Francisco Kino, planted grapes in the Tucson area. One of Arizona’s more comprehensive historical accounts comes from historian Erik Berg’s 2018 Journal of Arizona History article, “Equal Age for Age: The Growth, Death, and Rebirth of an Arizona Wine Industry, 1700–2000”. This resource looks deeply into the history of its early wine years. This, along with Thomas Pinney’s two volumes, A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition, and A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present, help solidify Arizona wine’s history.

Following the Mexican–American War, which came to an end with the 1848 Treaty of Hidalgo, Arizona originally joined the United States as part of the Territory of New Mexico. The geographical boundaries of the state remained in limbo for more than a decade. The southern half first seceded from the Union as the Territory of Arizona, part of the Confederate States, in January of 1862. Just over a year later, in February of 1863, the Federal government of the United States reclaimed the territory, with boundaries that would form the basis of its current borders.

During this time, silver and gold prospectors had made their way to the Santa Rita Mountains, establishing the Santa Rita mine and the Heintzelman mine in the Cerro Colorado Mountains in the southern parts of the state in 1856. In the years that followed came several other mines throughout the territories. The mining boom is significant for the influx of settlers that came with it, most of whom had a big thirst for beer, spirits, and wine.

Not surprisingly, it is not long after Arizona’s admittance to the U.S. and its uptick in mining operations that mention of a significant vineyard planting near present-day Phoenix surfaces. According to Berg’s report, in 1867 an irrigation company, Swilling Irrigating and Canal Company, formed under the ownership of J.W. “Jack” Swilling in 1867. As part of a growing community built up around the Salt River, a significant amount of farmland had been cultivated.

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